Heroes Season Three Spoilers (…just for one day. See what I did there?)

So I got up fairly early to go catch the Heroes panel Saturday morning at Comic Con, along with several thousand other people apparently. Many of us remember creator Tim Kring’s rather public “mea culpa” regarding what occurred through Season Two. So at Comic Con, two things occurred, the first was the appearance of the whole cast, but they were barely able to take questions. The reason for this leads me to number two, the entire Season Three opener – which isn’t airing until September 22 – was aired for Comic Con audiences as a thank you for the continued support.

Oh yeah, Kring said to spread the word about the show’s return, so in agreement with this request, here is a spoiler-laden summary of the events of Season Three’s “The Second Coming”, after the jump:

• The person who shot Nathan? Well that would be Peter, who comes back from four years in the future to do it. Matt eventually finds out who did it, but is banished by Peter to some “limbo” area with no apparent way to escape.

• Hiro is the head of his late father’s company but is unhappy about it, so he decides to kick the tires of the office. It turns out that his father had kept a formula in an office safe under his protection. In a pretty funny sequence, Hiro opens the safe and examines the formula, only to have it stolen from his hands moments later by a young girl with supersonic powers. Hiro travels ahead to see what the future is like without the formula in his possession, and finds himself squaring off with Ando in a battle that finds Ando using a power of his own to defeat Hiro.

• Speaking of powers, Sylar’s back and in living color, even more so now. He’s found Claire and acquired her power in a rather gruesome sequence, we get to see what Sylar does after he cuts open his victims’ skulls. So if you’re keeping track at home, Sylar and Claire are both indestructible now.

• Speaking of powers some more, Mohinder manages to find out Maya’s power and the cause for all genetic powers, which are in the adrenal glands. He isolates them into a syringe which, if replicated, can be a huge breakthrough. It also presents a moral dilemma for Mohinder as to whether or not to use the syringe on himself. I’ll let you guess what he winds up doing by the end of the episode.

This is primarily the bulk of the show, though you get to see scenes with some of the smaller supporting characters as well like Niki and Noah. In a sequence where Sylar manages to acquire an old file of Noah’s, he manages to get information on some more heroes, and I believe you also get a quick glimpse of Jamie Hector, known as Marlo Stanfield on The Wire and who agreed to join the cast in January.

Kring said at the presentation that the show is back and “better than ever,” and after watching “The Second Coming,” I’m not going to argue that contention. Heroes gets back to business in a big way, and I expect titanic things to occur this season.